04092015
by Raina Wolfe - Lateraina
Summary: With the help of a new Fenton gadget, Danny transports to the future where his love life has become complicated, his best friend is a wanted hacker, and he has more enemies than ever. FINALLY UPDATED.
1. Lessons In Inertia

_Oh, my lovely fans, how I adore thee. It's been too long since this story has seen its former day! Therefore I am resurrecting it from its terrible death and plunging it back into a fresh life! Enjoy the new version with better writing and a brand new setup. _

_[Unlike my other fanfiction, Insight View, there will be no "first" edition available for 04092015. Some of the plot has changed for the better. However – I will include sneak peeks for ya.]_

_So, have at it my friends and happy reading. _

_Disclaimer: Danny Phantom and all related characters are owned by Butch Hartman and Nickelodeon Studios._

* * *

_04092015_

_1_

_Lessons In Inertia_

_April Ninth 2005_

"How many tests do we have left on the list?" Wiping sweat from his brow, Danny Fenton landed catlike on his feet next to his friends.

"Getting tired already?" Sam Manson prompted with a smile.

"Hey," Danny argued, panting slightly. "I don't see you lifting seven-hundred pound objects five times in a row and then try to fly while carrying it across the lab."

"Technically, you dropped it once," Tucker was happy to point out. "So that only means four times butterfingers."

Danny's blue eyes narrowed in a playful glare. "I made it to the halfway point."

"And then what? Tripped on air?"

Even Sam couldn't hold back a laugh and he swiveled his dark gaze to her next but couldn't deny the blush that had crept over his face. "I still made it halfway. Over in fact."

"Don't flaunt the scale ace," Sam teased.

"What's your excuse for this again?" Tucker had wandered over towards a tall, glistening object that sat in the corner and dripped water onto the floor.

"I think he said he wasn't an ice chiseler," Sam answered for him as Danny groaned. "Or something like that."

He stared down at the ice figure he'd tried to create. Before, he'd seen Frostbite sculpt an entire life-size version of Danny himself. Today he'd attempted to make a tree. The result was proving to look more like an oblong UFO as Sam had put it only twenty minutes ago. Quite clearly, he had no future in the artistic department.

"That's right," Tucker taunted, pointing emphatically at the ice disk. "You don't have one."

"What's the next test?" Danny grumbled, ready to distract from his current roast.

Sam and Tucker exchanged comedic glances and then Sam drew her attention back to the clipboard in her hand. "Invisibility – check. Intangibility – check. Ectoplasmic blasts running at full power. Heavy lifting – check. Aim – check. Ice thing – epic fail. So you've got flight speed next."

"_That_ I can do," Danny said gleefully, leaping up into the air and stretching his arms over his head mid-flight. He did a couple warm ups as Tucker grabbed the speedometer from a table in his parents' lab.

Today, his parents were at some convention for ghost hunters. His sister was busy browsing a university she was interested in. He had the whole house to himself – with the exception of Tucker and Sam – and had decided there was no better time than to do a bit of self-testing to see how far his powers had come since the last set of testing seven months earlier. He'd locked the doors, turned off the phones, and had really set his focus on pushing the limits of his powers. Despite his lack of knowledge on how to make an icy figurine, he'd overcome all of his prior records times three.

Now he'd beat another one. It wasn't pride to say he knew he would; he just knew he was fast and had definitely gotten even faster in seven months' time. He flexed his arms, ready for the joyful feel of the wind on his face, even if he wasn't technically outside.

"Ready?" Tucker called from below.

"Ready."

"Five…four…three…two…one! Now!" he shouted, simultaneously pressing down a button on the timer.

Danny took off and the room began to blur as he circled around the lab walls, gaining speed with every turn. Sam had started to watch but stopped when she realized she was getting dizzy and instead, focused on the neon letters glowing from the speedometer's display screen. "One sixty…one eighty, come on Danny…" she urged, sharing a grin with Tucker.

"Ten seconds left," Tucker called out.

"One ninety…" Sam continued. "Two-hundred…two-ten…"

Danny could hear Tucker counting down from ten where he stood on the floor and he pushed himself harder, willing his body to move faster. He could feel the air pulsing around him as he dodged corners more easily and gained speed on the turns.

"Three…two…one!"

He slowed to a halt in front of them and went to land when motion caught up with him and he fell haphazardly to the ground in a dizzy heap. A slightly drunken laugh escaped him as he continued to lie there, seeing imaginary birds circle his head. "Whoa…head rush."

"Dizzy?" Sam asked, holding out a hand to help him to his feet.

"Yeah, just a bit," he replied, swaying slightly. "When you race around the room repeatedly for sixty seconds, you get a bit…woozy."

"It's all a part of momentum, inertia, and speed," Sam stated expertly.

"At least he isn't throwing up," Tucker added as Danny blinked several times, his vision still blurring slightly. "Yet…"

"Well, how'd I do?" he asked curiously as he tried to get his balance back.

Tucker smiled. "Two hundred and fifty."

"Really?" His hopeful smile turned into an ecstatic one. "Awesome!" He high-fived his best friends and whistled, suddenly feeling better than he had all day.

"How's it feel going that fast?" Sam asked, holding onto his hand a little longer.

"Totally awesome. Next time you guys fly with me."

"At that speed?"

"No way, you let me go last time," Tucker argued at the same time. "Thirty feet above the lake if I have to remind you."

"Tucker, you have never let me forget," Danny said, stringing his arms around both their shoulders. "Besides, I caught you."

"Barely."

"After we finish the tests, I say we celebrate. The Nasty Burger is open until eleven," he offered, glad he'd finally had the chance to do the trial period. With everything that had been going on lately, it was nice to get a break from the stress and just relax. Even if relaxing meant doing strenuous activities and he'd probably wake up sore the next morning.

"I think food sounds great. I'm starving and ready for some meat," Tucker agreed.

"What else is new?" Danny and Sam said together, laughing after at their synchronous replies. Tucker just shrugged without argument and rubbed his stomach hungrily.

"What's next on the list?"

But as Sam began to reply, his eyes caught something in the corner he hadn't noticed before. It was covered by a white sheet and was framed into the wall opposite of the Ghost Zone portal his parents had invented almost a year ago. He stared at it curiously, amazed he hadn't seen it when he'd come in or in the several hours they'd been down here. "What is that?"

"What is what?"

He pointed. "Underneath that sheet."

His friends followed his motion but didn't seem surprised when they saw it. Sam shrugged as if unimpressed. "Who knows? Just another gizmo?"

"How long has it been down here?" Danny zoomed over to it, grabbing the white cloth and pulling it off. He gasped at what he'd revealed.

It was an octagonal-shaped tunnel built into the wall. It was similar in width, but much shorter in height than the Fenton portal was. As soon as he'd taken off the sheet, it seemed to activate, making a high-pitched whirring noise. Danny dropped to the ground and his eyes seemed to light up as an eerie, green, luminescent glow shadowed his face. Whatever this new thing was…

It was the portal to something.

"Wow…" His voice seemed to echo back at him in spine-tingling whispers that only he could hear. He stood at the base of the tunnel and peered inside but it was nothing but a dimly lit room full of wires and sketches someone had drawn in chalk on the walls. The tunnel stopped about six feet in and was blocked off by another door that didn't look like it actually opened.

"What is it?" Sam asked, her lilac eyes taking in the box-shaped device at the tip of the portal doors. It looked like a digital alarm clock except it had eight numbers. 04092015 reflected back at them in red glow.

"I don't know. You would think my parents would tell me if they had a new thing," he responded, slightly awed. "They tell me about all the other stuff they make… Well, my dad does at least. I can't believe I didn't see it before."

"Your parents do have a lot of stuff down here," Tucker pointed out.

"It looks like the Fenton Portal," Sam said, bending down to check out a small panel on the left side of it. Danny examined it too and flipped the green button to on.

A thunderous noise reverberated through the whole lab, making the walls shake and the thousands of weapons and inventions in the room rattle. Sam and Danny jumped back as a blinding white light suddenly swirled at the portal opening, continuously moving like ripples in water.

"How did my parents _not _tell me about this?" Danny asked, unable to believe that his overzealous father would keep this thing – whatever it was – a secret. Even his own mother would surely boast about something this big. They'd talked about the Fenton portal for weeks in advance and then for months after it had been a finished project.

"Maybe it's a surprise?" Tucker offered.

"What does it do?" Sam wondered, mesmerized by the swirling light.

"Why don't we check it out?" Danny suggested, grinning back at his best friends as he stood in front of it. "Maybe it's a teleporter."

"Yeah…why don't you check it out Danny?" Tucker muttered, shoving Danny forward slightly.

"Aren't you guys coming?"

"Um…yeah, I remember what happened last time one of us walked into something like that," he admitted. "And um...well, now you're half-ghost."

Danny glanced at Sam who frowned. "He has a point. Not that I'm not up for trying new stuff. But you're already…"

"Weird?" he said, raising an eyebrow.

"Unique," Sam urged.

"Chickens," Danny teased. "You're soooo supportive." But when neither of them made a move to disagree, he sighed. "Look, I'll go first, but if I come out with a tail or something, I am so shoving you in there."

"Deal," Tucker and Sam replied together even though Danny knew they didn't actually mean it. He took a deep breath and turned towards the opening again, blinking against the harsh light. His heartbeat picked up a notch as he suddenly became very nervous. The Fenton Portal was the reason he had special ghost powers; what would this do to him?

_Don't think about it,_ he thought to himself, inhaling deeply again. _Just do it._

He held his hand out cautiously in front of him and inched it carefully towards the spinning light. It breached the opening and it felt like there was mist spraying on his black and white jumpsuit, even though it wasn't actually wet. He pushed the rest of his arm in and screamed when suddenly he felt himself being lifted off his feet and something tugged his entire body towards a vortex with a strength he couldn't fight. Light flashed all around him like a strobe light and he felt like he was being dragged down by some invisible entity. He got dizzy all over again as he moved farther into the tunnel of light. Fog and wind rushed past him in whirlwinds and his body was thrown haphazardly in various directions.

Then without warning, it stopped.

He never fell or landed, even. He was just suddenly aware that he was lying on his back. His eyes were squeezed together tightly and he could feel his heart racing in his chest. He waited for the motion sickness to pass and when it did, let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

He moved his fingers slowly and found it didn't hurt to move. Wherever he'd ended up, whatever had happened to him after he'd entered that portal, he seemed to be unharmed, just disoriented. He opened his eyes and found himself in a quiet darkness on a strange bed with flannel sheets. The lab had completely disappeared. Tucker and Sam too.

"No…" he whispered, frightened. He sat up and tried to make his eyes adjust to the sudden darkness. An alarm clock flashed at him from a bedside table. It read one o'clock. And with the darkness, Danny had to assume it was a.m., not p.m. But it had barely been three p.m. when he'd started training with Sam and Tucker, hadn't it?

He was in a room he didn't recognize at a different time than when he'd left and Sam and Tucker were nowhere to be found. A slight panic started to settle in and a cold chill crossed his skin. What was happening? What _had _happened?

"Danny?"

He jumped at the voice and let out a strangled cry. Whirling around, he stared into familiar lilac eyes that were full of concern. She reached out to touch him and he realized that even though he knew who she was, she looked so different. Her black hair was longer and she appeared to be…older. And she was dressed in a nightgown that was a deep purple in the darkness. And they were sharing the same bed. Him and Sam.

"Oh."

He went to move away and fell completely off the bed instead.

* * *

_New chapter names, new details (and hopefully better details), and yet it's still not as lengthy as I pictured. Oh, well – it's gonna get better. And funnier. I have a mix of drama and humor in this one. And lots and lots of evilness._

_So, as promised, here is your brand new sneak peek – _

_Chapter Two: Femme Fatale_

_ "You must be so desperate to tell me such a tale," she whispered against his ear._

_ "It's the truth!" he shouted, right before she grabbed his chin roughly with her hand. _

_ "I think you can do better with the right persuasion." Her threat was made a promise when her other hand came up with an energized weapon that glowed dangerously in the darkness._

_ "Do you want me to beg?" he asked, running out of options. "I will – I don't have that much dignity."_

* * *

_Please review and stay tuned for upcoming chapters and edits. _

_Raina Wolfe_


	2. Femme Fatale

_And chapter two is here. And funnier and longer._

_FOR THOSE OF YOU JUST JOINING US: Please know that if chapters three and four aren't edited yet and seem a bit different than the first two chapters, I am going to be changing those too as soon as I get to them. If anything, I request that you do not read ahead because it will probably just confuse you. The two plotlines are similar but this newer version has more to it than the original. If you are reading this chapter but have not seen the brand new chapter one, I highly suggest you go back to read it so that the body of this chapter makes sense!_

_Thanks to my lovely readers and reviewers – you are most appreciated, even after all these years._

* * *

_04092015_

_2_

_Femme Fatale_

_April Ninth 2015_

Danny let out a strangled sound as he fell hard onto the carpeting and barely missed smacking his head on the bedside table. The alarm clock, however, dropped onto his chest, since he'd reached out to grab something and had ended up tangling his hand into the clock's plug-in cord. It lost power for a second and then came back on, blinking the numbers 12:00 back at him.

"Danny, are you okay?"

He looked up to see this older Sam peering over the edge of the bed at him, her pretty lilac eyes full of confusion and concern. She reached over and flicked a switch and light flooded the room. He glanced around and saw that the walls were a deep hue of blue like the midnight sky. The carpet beneath his fingertips was a gray color. There was a tv set hooked on the wall directly across from the king-size bed she was still sitting on. A walk-in closet and a second dresser were in the far corner and another door led to what looked like a small bathroom. On the dresser was an assortment of every day "getting ready" things like cologne, a hairbrush, and black fingernail polish. A series of photos in silver frames were arranged artfully across the opposite wall, each filled with a picture of him and Sam.

But they were pictures he'd never seen before and places he'd swore he'd never been – some carnival with a Ferris-wheel in the background; an aquarium where he and Sam were standing before a shark tank and making mock-scared faces; a Halloween party where he'd been dressed as a vampire and Sam was a zombie. The only one he recognized was a picture of the two of them and Tucker huddled together in a friendly photo-op. He remembered taking the picture a couple months back.

"Danny?"

"Hmm?" He shoved the alarm clock off him and let it fall to the floor.

"You okay?"

"Umm…" _Define okay_, he wanted to ask her. Besides being in a weird room with no real idea of how he'd got there and how he was there, or why – or why Sam looked the way she did. And that he had no clue what was happening. He supposed if you took that whole thing out of the question, he was_ okay_.

"I uh…umm…" he stammered, not quite sure how to respond. He supposed there was only one way to find out what kind of situation he'd landed himself in. "Where am I?"

"You're at home…" Sam's eyes seemed to narrow in an almost suspicious way as she stared at him questioningly.

He slowly climbed to his feet and suddenly realized he was taller by maybe a foot at the most, making him six-foot even. He examined his hands and arms and realized the muscles rippling across his body were firmer and more toned. He was wearing long black sweat pants and a t-shirt and was barefoot. There was a small cut on his left forearm that looked a couple days old and a silver watch on his right wrist. And on his left ring finger was…

"Oh my gosh…" The band was thick on his finger and engraved with golden lettering in a language he couldn't read. It was beautiful to look at even if he didn't recognize it.

He never saw Sam move. He just knew that suddenly he was pinned on the floor as she tackled him roughly and grabbed his arms so that he couldn't break their fall. Breath whooshed from his lungs as he hit the floor hard again. Shocked, he opened his mouth to ask her what she was doing when a high-pitched noise cut him off. He stared down the barrel of an energy gun and froze instantly.

"Who are you?" she demanded, her knee pressing into his chest.

"It's me, Sam. I'm Danny!" he shouted.

"Oh, really?" She loaded up the gun and her finger tightened on the trigger. "Yet you have no idea where you are?"

A part of him should have seen this coming. Of course she'd think there was something wrong. But he hadn't expected her attack. Now he was at her mercy and had no idea what to say to make things better. If that was even an option.

"Wait," he pleaded. "I am Danny. Listen – five minutes ago I was standing in my parents' lab and you were there. So was Tucker. We found this portal thing and I stepped into it. I ended up here."

A dry laugh escaped her throat. "Is that so?"

"Yeah…it must have been a teleporter or something and I - "

She put her elbow to his throat and leaned forward, shoving the weapon to his temple in warning. "Don't think I won't pull this trigger."

In an instinctive motion, he wrenched his hand from her grip and knocked the gun away from her. She gasped and lunged for it, giving him the opportunity to gain the advantage. In a move he couldn't remember learning he flipped her completely over so that he was hovering over her instead of vice versa. But then her knee came up and smacked into his most sensitive area and suddenly he was flat on his stomach, groaning in pain.

She wrapped her arm around his neck and he sucked in a haggard breath as she dragged him upward, determined not to let her win, but not hurt her at the same time. "Nice try." Her head was right behind his, her free hand holding onto his right wrist – the one he would have surely fought back with while his other hand kept her from choking him.

"I'm telling the truth. I don't know how I got here. It was something my dad created, it had to be," he tried.

"You must be so desperate to tell me such a tale," she whispered against his ear.

"It's the truth!" he shouted, right before she grabbed his chin roughly with her hand.

"I think you can do better with the right persuasion." Her threat was made a promise when her other hand came up with the energized weapon that glowed dangerously in the darkness.

"Do you want me to beg?" he asked, running out of options. "I will – I don't have that much dignity."

This time, her laugh was sincere as she heard his answer. "Oh, you're oh-so suave," she muttered, squeezing her grip on his neck. "But I'll give you credit for that one."

"Your name is Samantha Emily Manson. Your birthday is December twenty-first on the first day of winter, your favorite time of the year. You're an ultro-recyclo vegetarian and an active animal-rights spokesperson and environmentalist. We met in grade school when you kicked me off the monkey bars! You're the reason I have ghost powers…"

Her grip seemed to loosen almost instantly at his words. He dared to turn his head to look at her but could only see her arm still. "What?" she asked, her voice hardly above a whisper.

"Please, believe me. Believe that I have no idea what's going on…"

"How do you know all that?"

"I'm Danny, I swear. I'm fourteen years old and -"

She released him completely and gasped. "Fourteen?"

"Yeah…"

"Fourteen?"

"Yeah…"

Sam flopped down on the carpet next to him and put a hand to her head as if she couldn't believe it. "How is that possible?"

"This is the future…isn't it?" he realized. "What year is it?"

"It's 2015," she replied after a moment.

Danny swallowed hard as he recalled the numbers that had been on the box above the portal. 04092015. "April ninth?"

She nodded and brushed a strand of her hair from her face. "Ten years…"

"The thing I walked into wasn't a teleporter. It was a portal for time-travelling."

"Time machines were invented by humans two years ago. We've been using ghost portals to travel back and forth through time for years before that though," she said. She sighed heavily and leaned her head on her knee for a moment. "This can't be happening."

"I really didn't know this would happen, I swear."

"I really don't know if I can trust what you're saying is true," she countered, bringing her head back up to glare at him. "But the fact is, you know things about me that most people don't, so that goes to say something."

"I feel like this is a really bad dream…"

She stood on her feet and began to pace across the room, her face heavy with concentration. Danny noticed she too had become taller but not by much. He also noticed her nightgown was a bit shorter than he initially assumed and he shifted his eyes to the tv, trying not to stare. "Who invented the machine you used?" she finally asked, breaking him from his wistfulness.

"I don't know. My parents never showed it to me. The three of us just found it in the lab while we were down there. It looked new."

"Your parents never showed it to you?"

He shook his head. "Which is kind of weird."

"Exactly." But she didn't explain what she meant. Instead, she stopped pacing and glanced down at him where he was, still on the floor. "Say that I trust you. Say this is some kind of fluke and all you have to do is get to a time-portal to be sent back. What happens then? My Danny comes back?"

He tried to ignore the way she'd said "my Danny" and focused on the question she'd posed. "I'm not sure. I guess so."

"Come with me."

She darted out of the room and he scrambled to his feet to chase after her. He appeared in a short hallway with three doors, one of which was open to a bathroom. At the other end of the hall was a stairwell that Sam trundled down two at a time. He followed and at the base of the stairs he ended up in a kitchen; the scent of Italian spices still lingered in the air and a few dirty dishes were in the sink. The refrigerator hummed and an old-fashioned cuckoo clock rested on the far wall. Sam kept going and led him through a wide archway into a living room with black couches and a loveseat Danny recognized from his own house of his time period. The whole room had a very retro feel to it and old cds were plastered shiny-side out on the ceiling. Moonlight poured down from a wide bay window and cast shadows across the furniture and carpet. Sam finally stopped as she reached a closet just beyond the entertainment center. She threw open the door, dug inside for a moment, and then came back out and thrust a black gym bag at his chest.

"Emergency clothes and stuff," she explained as he glanced down at it curiously. "We come prepared these days."

"Sounds like a good idea," he told her.

"Yes, well it was mine." And for the first time since he'd gotten there, she smiled and it reminded him of how pretty she really was.

He reached out and took her hand. "I'm sorry about all this," he said, thinking that the apology didn't really do any justice. He'd creeped her out and made her suspicious. If the future version of himself returned, she would still be wary of him.

She leaned up and pressed her lips against hers in a kiss so sweet, everything else seemed to fall away. It wasn't a long kiss, just one that made him realize how much she was laying on the line to believe his story and try to help him out.

"Fourteen," she said, licking her lips. "Does that mean we're together?"

"Two weeks ago we did," he said, entwining his fingers around hers.

"Oh, good. No spoilers then." She smiled and picked up her own bag, trotting off towards a doorway. He followed like an eager puppy and came to stand in a small foyer with a door that led outside. She threw on a long, dark coat that fell to her knees and tossed him a soft denim jacket. "Chilly night," she said, looking like she wanted to say something that broke the silence. She waited for him to get the jacket on and then opened the door and walked out.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

But before he'd breached the doorway, he ran straight into an invisible wall and almost fell over in surprise. Rubbing his forehead, he blinked to get the stars out of his eyes.

Sam laughed, a rich sound that hadn't changed much. "I forgot about that. Shields down."

"Acknowledged," came a robotic voice from a speaker rooted into the upper corner of the porch. There was quiet noise and Danny reached out tentatively to find the wall had disappeared.

"Ghost shield?"

Sam nodded. "Necessary when you live with a superhero with lots of enemies. Funny when I get to watch you smack your face on them almost every time. Ever see those funny videos where people run into the sliding doors made out of glass? Yeah, that's still funny every time too."

"Glad you think so," he grumbled.

"Come on," she said, motioning to the driveway with her head. Again, he followed in her footsteps and found himself face to face with a flying car parked in the driveway.

"Holy cow, pinch me…"

It was a black Ford Mustang with sleek curves and wings that stretched out to either side. Silver ghost flames were painted on the doors and the license plate read PHANTOM. His mouth fell open in shock. This was his car.

Sam's fist came out of nowhere and landed a punch on his cheek. He stumbled backwards and cried out. "Ouch! What was that for? I said pinch me, not punch me!"

"Eh," she said, grinning. "Pinching's not my style."

"I see you haven't changed much," he commented, running his hand along his jaw.

Her smile widened and she dangled keys from her fingers. "Guess this means I get to drive since you don't even have a license technically."

"Even if I did, I wouldn't know how to drive a flying car…"

She opened the driver's side door and stared at him as he stood next to the passenger side. "Well, guess you've got a lot of catching up to do."

_Understatement of the century_, he thought, gazing down at the wedding ring on his finger.

* * *

_Intense. I like it. It lost some of the banter from the original, but I like this version better. It seems more real but still keeps it Danny Phantom style. The next chapter has some better humor since it follows the original chapter more closely than any of the others will. There's still a quote or two from the former version as well if any of you remember it or notice it._

_Well, here's your sneak peek!_

_Chapter Three: Curiouser & Curiouser_

_Here was a four-story building made out of nothing but steel. It looked more like a technology company than an actual house. There were security cameras set up everywhere that had key pad controls beneath them all. Holographic lights lit a pathway up to the porch. A small unmanned machine noiselessly cut the grass. Danny instantly knew: this was definitely Tucker's house._

_He quickly followed Sam up the silver stairs that clunked every time Sam lay her boot down. She walked up to the door and towards a key pad, hitting four numbers. An alarm sounded suddenly and Danny started as the loud noise reached an ear-splitting pitch._

_Sam merely shrugged. "It'll wake him up faster."_

_Please read and review!_

_Raina Wolfe_


	3. Curiouser & Curiouser

_Hello all - back again with a newly edited chapter. _

_TUNING IN?: Please know that if chapter four is not edited yet and seems a bit different than the first three chapters, I am going to be changing it as soon as I can. If anything, I request that you do not read ahead because it will probably just confuse you. The two plotlines are similar but this newer version has more to it than the original. If you are reading this chapter but have not seen the brand new chapters (1-3), I highly suggest you go back to read them so that the body of this chapter makes sense!_

_As always, thanks to my wonderful reviewers!_

_*Previously in 04092015: A brand new invention in the Fenton lab transports Danny ten years into a new future. And his wife Sam has a dangerous opinion on the switch…_

* * *

_04092015_

_3_

_Curioser & Curiouser_

_April Ninth 2015_

"Where are we going?" Danny asked again, realizing five minutes too late that Sam hadn't answered the question the first time. He knew the streets of Amity Park from the streets and the sky by heart but had no clue where they were heading now. Everything was a mass of color and motion, merely blurs as they raced past at forty miles an hour.

Sam hesitated before she answered and pressed her lips together. "Tucker's house. We'll be safe there."

"Safe? Are we in danger?"

"I don't really like that my husband was replaced by his fourteen-year old self out of nowhere, no," she muttered. "No offense. It just seems rather…foreboding."

"What do you mean?" he asked, glancing at her.

Her pale face was lit up by the dashboard lights, giving her a colorful glow. She reached over and played with the radio for a moment and Danny could sense her nervousness. "Don't you think it's odd that your Dad never told you about the time machine? Don't you think he'd say something? I know your Dad. He'd tell anyone who would listen and then talk to hear himself talk if there was no one else around to do so."

Danny considered the idea. Hadn't he said the same thing _before _he'd stepped into the portal? She was right. There was no way his parents would keep this a secret from him, especially not after finding out their own son had ghost powers.

"It just showed up," he stated, starting to get a creeped out feeling himself.

"Someone could have put it there, trying to get you here. And obviously they know you well enough to know you'd be…curious enough to walk into it."

Danny knew she hadn't really wanted to say curious. She'd probably wanted to say dumb, which is how he felt. He should have waited for his parents to come home before he'd started poking around. Clearly, he hadn't learned his lesson the first time.

"What do you think?" he dared to ask.

She sighed heavily. "I think it may have been sent by an enemy and unfortunately, you have too many for me to narrow the list down past ten. But it makes sense. Sending you here with no knowledge of this present world and no idea what you're capable of makes you an easy target. You're vulnerable."

"Oh…" He hadn't thought about that.

"The question we really have to think about is _why _you're here. Why did it send you forward to this particular time period? This can't have just been a coincidence. And I don't remember you ever stepping into a portal when you were fourteen."

Silence fell in the car and he just looked at her, amused. She caught herself and laughed. "Besides the Fenton Portal I mean. I don't remember you transporting to the future."

"You convinced me to walk into both portals, for the record," he reminded her.

"Yeah, maybe you shouldn't heed my advice next time," she said, swerving quickly around a semi-truck with a metal harness fixed on top so that it looked more like a parachute was allowing it to fly than wings.

"I have to," Danny said, gripping onto the door handle to steady himself. "You're my girlfriend."

She smiled to herself. "I'm your wife in this world."

"Yeah, I'm still trying to get that through my head. When did we get married?" he wondered, finding himself wanting to watch her more than the world they were flying through.

"I don't really want to tell you that," she finally said after a moment of silence. He raised an eyebrow and the car lurched forward as she stopped at a red light. "It could mess up the past, me telling you too much. When we send you back you might accidentally change things."

"How are you planning on sending me back?" he asked instead. "Through a time machine?"

"Nah," she replied. "They're still kind of flaky. You might end up as a six-year old again. We're probably going to go through the Ghost Zone."

"The Ghost Zone?"

"Remember the portals that used to open up into alternate dimensions and time-periods? The ones we used to find from the Infi-Map?"

"Yeah," he confirmed. "But will those -"

"You'll see," she promised. The light turned green and she leaned on the gas pedal hard. Danny's head smacked against the headrest and he vowed to never get in a car with a sixteen year old Sam the first time she drove in a regular car.

"Is there anything you can tell me?"

She smiled and put her hand on the gear shift. "Well, one thing is that you're not going to like my landings. The second is that I think you _will _like where we're at."

He glanced down out the window to see they were coming up on a large roof that looked like the top of a hospital where helicopters landed. The pad was just as big and had a bright blue symbol painted across it that looked like an anchor. She eased the car across the landing zone but then cut the power, sending them crashing to the ground from five-feet up.

He inhaled deeply and stared at her. "What was that?"

"I warned you. Besides, the car's fine. Tires are bouncier now. They take all the impact and stuff," she said, as if it was enough of an explanation. He just continued to stare at her with wide eyes and she smacked him playfully on the shoulder. "What? You land the shuttles, I land the cars."

"Wait – what?"

She got out of the car without answering and he fought with his seatbelt before he could do the same. He slammed the door behind him, running to catch up with her.

"Does that mean what I think it means?"

She kept her facial expression carefully neutral. "What do you think it means?"

"I think you said shuttles. Like space shuttles. Like I landed shuttles. In space. And that would mean that I'm an astronaut." He stumbled in the grass they were walking on as he tried to wait patiently for her reply, but it never came. "Come on Sam… You can't tell me one little thing?"

"I don't want to alter the timeline," she answered. "What if we send you back tomorrow and you know everything that you're going to do already? You'd become desperate to make it happen or not happen. You could change the course of events and permanently destroy this future. This present, I mean."

"But you said I'm vulnerable without the knowledge of how this world works. Don't you think I should know a little so that if we are…attacked, I know how to defend myself?"

She didn't answer and looked like she was struggling to come up with one. He walked beside her in silence as they made their way down a long flight of concrete stairs. Finally, they reached a gate and it creaked as she pushed it open and stepped through.

"We're here," she announced as he went past her.

Here was a four-story building made out of nothing but steel. It looked more like a technology company than an actual house. There were security cameras set up everywhere that had key pad controls beneath them all. Holographic lights lit a pathway up to the porch. A small unmanned machine noiselessly cut the grass. Danny instantly knew: this was definitely Tucker's house.

He quickly followed Sam up the silver stairs that clunked every time Sam lay her boots down. She walked up to the door and towards a key pad, hitting four numbers. An alarm sounded suddenly and Danny started as the loud noise reached an ear-splitting pitch.

Sam merely shrugged. "It'll wake him up faster."

He laughed at the thought, knowing Tucker couldn't be much different from the Tucker he knew. Sam was proving to be a bit tougher and seemed to have a way of seeing things from all perspectives before making a decision.

"Does Tucker have a wife?"

Sam barked out a laugh and shook her head. "He wishes."

"Just checking," he added. "I assume he's still married to his computer."

"You know, I think it was his PDA that he got the marriage license for actually," she joked, making him laugh. There were still a lot of things he wanted to know but he'd go for a laugh right now. It felt good compared to the uneasiness that he couldn't seem to overcome.

"Danny…" she began slowly, taking his hand. "I know this all must be…overwhelming for you right now." He was amazed at how easily she'd read his thoughts. They must have gotten super close in the last ten years. "And I know you're probably thinking I'm hiding things from you or that I don't want to tell you everything. But we've messed with time enough in the past. I want to make sure things – stay the same. There are certain things I like – that I love – about this time."

"I understand," he said after a moment, squeezing her hand.

"This is so…weird."

"What's weird?"

"It's been ten years and yet you don't seem any different than you are now," she answered. "I mean, you're a bit denser than now but that's just normal."

"Thanks, I think," he said, grinning at her.

"What the!" The door opened suddenly and Tucker stood there, looking sleepy eyed and annoyed, his glasses strewn clumsily across his nose due to his rush. Danny noticed he was a great deal taller as well and had gotten a few doses of some facial hair as well. His trademark red beret was slightly sideways on his head. "Why didn't you just ring the doorbell guys?"

"We have a slightly serious situation that would require you to get your lazy butt out here in record time. It worked, didn't it?" Sam replied easily.

He gave her a look and pressed a few buttons on the keypad. The noise cut off immediately but Danny thought he could still hear it in his head. Tucker smirked at her. "Oh yeah? What's your situation?"

"We should probably go inside," Sam suggested with a tone that implied she wasn't going to take no for an answer. She glanced over in Danny's direction and Tucker sighed.

"Valerie trouble again, huh?"

"Not…exactly."

Tucker held the door open for them both while Danny hesitantly walked inside. "Valerie? Valerie Gray? Is she still a ghost hunter?" he asked, looking to Tucker for the answer rather than Sam.

Tucker stared, narrowing his greenish eyes in confusion. "Uh, so yeah, what's going on again?"

Sam sighed heavily for the third time that night. "This is Danny."

His best friend laughed. "Really? Thanks Captain Obvious, I've only known that for about twenty-five years."

"This is Danny from ten years ago."

There was a very long silence and then – "Wait, what?"

"I time-travelled by accident after a finding a portal in my parents' lab," Danny explained.

"Sweet," Tucker whistled.

"No, not sweet. Someone may have planted that portal there for fourteen-year old Danny to find so that our Danny would be sent who-knows-where."

This thought had not occurred to Danny until now. If he'd come here, did that mean his twenty-four year old self had been sent back in his place? Or was he somewhere else? If he wasn't in the past – he could be anywhere.

No wonder Sam was so freaked out.

"How did you figure this out?"

"Well, for one, he didn't know who I was when he first woke up and he had a small conniption fit because of it," she told him.

"Yeah, well, I would too if I woke up next to you while you looked like that," Tucker teased.

Sam's pale cheeks turned red and she pulled her black coat closer around her as if she just remembered she was only wearing a nightgown, giving Tucker a death glare that could have smoldered anyone else. Danny pretended not to notice and scratched his cheek nervously with one hand.

"Okay, start from the beginning," Tucker requested, unfazed by Sam's dark looks.

Danny took a breath. "You, me and Sam were testing out some of my powers in the lab. I found this portal that was covered by a sheet and you guys told me to check it out. I stepped inside and showed up here."

"Shouldn't you have learned by now to stop doing things like that?" Tucker asked.

"That's not the point," Sam started.

"Isn't it?" Tucker interrupted.

"Well, sort of. But the fact is I can't remember ever finding a time-travelling portal that we told Danny to go into when I was fourteen. I'd remember something like that. Someone sent it back for him to find."

"Maybe it was Danny," Tucker proposed. "Maybe this is like a Terminator thing."

Danny snorted and then cut his laughter off at the look Sam gave him. "Sorry," he muttered.

"I was serious actually. Maybe Danny sent the machine back so that he could change something," Tucker continued.

"Change what though? There are lots of things he could change."

"I know of two things that would make him desperate enough to do it," Tucker grumbled.

"What two things?" Danny asked as Sam elbowed Tucker.

"It's nothing you need to worry about. Tucker, we need to get him to the Ghost Zone. We can go to his parents. They'll help us get in but we'll have to guide him through so he knows where to go. But I think I should be the one to warn them first. If you guys can hang here for a while, I'll be back soon."

Danny had the distinct feeling she was going to do more than just tell his parents what was going on. He knew Sam better and she had another plan. She just wasn't going to say it in front of him. He knew that him knowing too much was potentially a bad thing but that didn't stop him from getting slightly frustrated. Why all the secrets?

"Alright," Tucker agreed finally.

"Stay here," Sam demanded, pointing emphatically at Danny like he was a five-year old being scolded. "Under no circumstances do I want you to leave."

"I got it," he said, throwing his hands up in defeat.

"He's not going anywhere," Tucker said, suddenly putting an arm around him. "We're gonna have a chat buddy."

"Tucker, we can't reveal too much -"

"Blah blah blah, go on, I won't say anything that drastic…" He just grinned as she glared at him again and then dragged Danny off towards a doorway that led into a dark room. After a few seconds, Danny heard the front door slam as Sam left.

He turned to his older best friend. "Valerie? What does she have to do with anything? Is she still a ghost hunter?" he demanded immediately.

"Relax," Tucker prompted. "Walk with me, talk with me…"

He snapped his fingers and light illuminated the room. If it was designed to be a living room, it was hard to tell. The three-seater couch looked out of place among the hundreds of gizmos in the room. Four television sets were hung on the wall. A glass display case that ran the entire length of the wall carried all kinds of devices and consoles Danny had never seen before. Boxes and discs were on the second shelf – some filled with movies, others filled with games. There were cameras and controllers, computers and holographic objects that glimmered in the light.

"Damn…" Danny couldn't help but say.

"You like?" Tucker said, beaming with fresh pride. "Computer in every room, holographic control links at every station. I've got GDR hooked up everywhere."

"GDR?"

"Oh, right," he said. "It's what replaced Wi-Fi. But it's cooler and only super cool people like ourselves can work it."

"Oh." Danny couldn't believe all the stuff he was seeing? All of this in ten years? Plus flying cars. He wondered what else was new.

Tucker sat down on the couch and propped his feet up on a small footrest. "So, what do ya think?"

"I think this is actually kind of how I imagined your house to be like," he confessed, sitting down on the couch as well. "So you're pretty much the same then too at least."

"The same old techno geek who owns and runs Axion Labs."  
"What?"

"Yep," he replied, wiggling his eyebrows. "Technology, science, and ghosts mixed together is a beautiful thing. And a force to be reckoned with. Check this out." He leaned over towards a table and grabbed a round ball of what looked like solid metal. "This thing right here is the reason I'm filthy rich."

"You are?"

"Of course I am."

"What does it do?"

Tucker grinned and tossed it on the floor. It rolled across the hardwood and then made a popping noise. Grids of green light filtered out from it, covering the entire room in horizontal and vertical lines. It spun around several times and then rolled back towards Tucker.

"One ghost located. No threat found," came an oddly female robotic voice.

"It senses ghosts?"

"And their energies. Ghosts with higher energy have this kind of aura that it can sense and pinpoint. It has a setting for ghosts with dark energy too. If a powerful and evil ghost shows up it absorbs their energy and makes them powerless and therefore, less dangerous."

"That's brilliant!" Danny said sincerely.

"Your mom helped out with the idea," Tucker admitted. "It sensed that you were in the room but it knows you aren't a threat." He tossed the device up in the air and caught it. "I call it Vanessa."

"Vanessa?" he said, grinning.

"My anti-ghost tank is named Sheila," Tucker told him, leaning back against the couch again. "And my favorite PDA is Cheryl."

"Wow…"

"So, how are you feeling anyway? Must be strange for you to come here," Tucker said, glancing over at him with new interest.

"Very confused," Danny confessed. "Why all the hush hush about everything? Even if I know a little about what's to come in my future doesn't mean I'll remember it."

"You're saying you won't remember that you and Sam are married?"

"I…well, probably but…"

"What do you want to know? I'll tell you what I can and if you ask a question I can't answer, I'll work around it best I can, how's that?" he offered.

"Do people still know I'm a ghost?"

"Oh, yeah. That's a big yeah. Right after they found out, you were a celebrity for a while. The lifestyle kind of got old but then again, so did the story on the ghost kid. People just began to accept you and the fame kind of leveled out again. Now you're just a super cool fairy tale parents tell their kids about at night. You still protect this city and you make a really badass superhero."

"Are you not a mayor anymore?"

"No, I quit after two years. They kept giving me grief because I was your best friend. They thought I was biased to make decisions based on ghost-related business. I don't miss it. People complain too much and are too hard to please."

"Oh," Danny said, taking this all in.

"The mayor that replaced me after the election was kind of a jerk. His name was Vic Bransom and he was this old guy who made it a point to 'safety-fy' – as he put it – the city. He called in a lot of big people and they quarantined the city for a year."

"For what?"

"To make sure that no ghosts could escape into the rest of the world," he continued. "He even had the government shut down the Fenton portal because he said it was part of the problem. You were the prime suspect for a lot of serious crimes while he was in office. It was easy to blame you for stupid stuff. But people started defending you after it started going downhill. Problem was, we started running out of resources due to the quarantine and people with families who lived outside the city couldn't visit each other. Then the ghosts that were trapped in the city and couldn't get back to the Ghost Zone started wreaking havoc a lot. So the people voted him off. Now he lives in Tulsa."

Danny suddenly gasped as he thought of a question. "Am I an astronaut?"

"Take it down a notch random," Tucker said, raising an eyebrow at the level of excitement he'd suddenly reached.

"Am I?"

"You…were… For a year and a half."

"Did I visit a planet? Was I up in a space station? Did I land on the moon?"

"Um, no, yes, and no."

"One out of three is good enough for me! Yes!" Danny threw his hands up in victory and slouched back against the couch next to his best friend. "But only for a year and a half?"

"Yeah…something came up."

Tucker's voice had reached the same tone Sam's had when she didn't want to say something. Danny glanced at him quizzically. "What kind of something?"

"Let's just say a lot of good things happened and a couple bad things happened and leave it at that. It's the way it's been for a year now. And me telling you now won't change anything I hope, so I'm not saying anymore."

"Then why did you say something to begin with? What do you mean a couple _bad _things happened? Does it have to do with what you're not telling me about Valerie?" He sat up again and waited for his friend to answer. "Or is something else?"

But before he could say anything else, Tucker stood up. "I'm getting a drink. Want something?"

"Tucker…"

However, Tuck ignored him and kept walking towards what had to be a kitchen. Danny leapt after him but as soon as he stood, his molecules seemed to expand and retract in one painful motion. He felt his body catapult through the air and then suddenly his body was reforming together again and he was in a different room. Tucker walked through the door and gave a very womanish scream at the sight of him suddenly standing there.

"Are you trying to give me a heart attack? I told you not to teleport because it gives me the willies!" Tucker cried, holding a hand over his heart.

"I think I'm gonna hurl," Danny groaned, motion catching up with him. He stood still and put a hand to his head, feeling slightly dizzy and nauseous.

"Sit down…" Tucker gently helped him into a chair at the dining table and Danny breathed in and out, trying to calm his stomach.

"I can teleport?" he asked after a moment.

"Yeah. And you spent the first two years scaring me for shits and giggles for the record. Of course, it's one you can't really control still. Your mind seems to do it whether your body wants to or not." He glanced at Danny's pale face and winced. "Feel better?"

"That was a rush," he said, nodding.

"Yeah, you're not a big fan of it. But it gets you out of situations fast and you can teleport people with you sometimes."

"What other powers should I know about?"

Tucker laughed. "Dude, you have too many."

"People still say dude?"

"Shut up."

They laughed together for a moment and silence fell again except for the hum of a couple gadgets that were sitting untouched on the counter. "I can't believe how much things have changed."

"You're catching up after ten years. When it's ten years you've already lived through, it doesn't seem like much at all."

"Can you really send me back?"

"Should be able to. Might run into a few snags along the way, but nothing we don't deal with on a daily basis anyway," he replied.

"What kind -"

Before he could finish, the front door banged against the wall in the other room and Danny could hear Sam's boots clack against the floor. "Tucker!?" she shouted, sounding alarmed.

"In here!" he called.

She rushed into the room and instantly walked over towards a tv hanging from cupboards above the sink. "Video six, on." The screen flashed on and Danny stood shakily, trying to see past her.

"Sam, what's wrong?"

She turned up the volume and Danny could hear a news anchor announcing: "Investigators are still searching for any evidence on the breakout and potential suspects have been taken in for questioning. The escaped convict has been a resident of the city of Amity Park prison for the last two years…"

But the woman's voice from the news cast disappeared as Danny finally caught sight of the escaped prisoner's picture. Messy silver hair and a matching ragged beard adorned a shrunken, skeletal face. Dark blue eyes looked haunted and yet still luminescent with a raging anger. He'd know that face anywhere, despite the changes.

"Plasmius," Danny muttered, causing both Sam and Tucker glance back at him.

Sam nodded solemnly and put her hand on her hip. "Still think that you being sent here wasn't a trap?"

* * *

_Guess you'll find out in upcoming chapters. I've got one last chapter to edit after this one so stay tuned and hopefully I'll have that done soon. Until then, here's your sneak peek!_

_Chapter Four: Locked & Loaded_

_ "We have to get you back to your time now," Sam urged. _

_ "It's not just about me changing the future anymore, is it?" Danny asked, walking forward to stand right in front of her. Her eyes fell elsewhere as she tried not to look at him. He knew she didn't want to answer but she didn't want to lie either. He turned his head to look at his best friend. "What aren't you guys telling me?"_

_ "You're the one who put Vlad back in prison," Tucker stated. _

_ "Okay, why is that such a bad thing? He put the whole world in danger at one point and I don't know what he did after that because I haven't gotten there yet. But I think that's enough of a reason for him to be locked up."_

_ "There are certain people who didn't think so," Sam suddenly said. _

_ "Like who?"_

_Please read and review!_

_Raina Wolfe – Lateraina _


	4. Leading The Way

Hello!

This was meant to be updated Friday, but what happened? Fanfiction wasn't working. Of course. So, you're getting this one late—and it doesn't count because if people really respond to this chapter, than I might actually reach 100, which was supposed to happen Friday. I won't tell if you won't…

Thanks to my reviewers!

Miss A. LaRosa x2, someone you dont know, Risika135, Spirit and Soul 29, SamuraiSirius, PhantomGoth912, Kats0280416, ChthonianRaven, Slayer of Souls, Fantastic Bouncy Girl, Fey Phantom, JayJayde, Worker72, Melis2a, Fanficaholic, ashnet x3, purpledog100, Master of Procrastination, dplover101, samandan, XxFadedxMemoriesxX, Miss Selarne, Hakkyou Kuusou, Ohka Breynekai, Galateagirl, Snea, Nobody is Somebody

**04092015**

**4**

**Leading The Way**

"Big trouble?" Danny asked.

"This night just keeps getting better and better," Tucker said, standing up and suddenly rushing from the room.

"You're telling me," he muttered, jumping up and racing to follow him. "Tucker, wait a second, where are you--" He felt his body catapult into the air and in the next second, he found himself in another hallway, landing right in front of his older best friend who gave a small scream that sounded fairly like a woman's.

"Jeez, Danny, what are you trying to do, give me a heart attack? I thought we agreed that you wouldn't…oh…"

"What the heck just happened?" Danny asked, staring around, confused.

"You teleported and nearly killed me in the process," Tucker replied, placing a hand over his chest.

"Teleported?" Danny exclaimed. "I can teleport?"

"Yeah…you got that…oh, I don't know…maybe two, three years ago," he said. "You're really testing my memory here. You have too many."

"Really…how many?" he asked after a minute.

"I'd have to say…over fifteen," he replied.

"Wow…" Danny gasped. "This is…great…And really…really…give me an adjective here."

"How old are you again?" he asked, his eyes narrowing.

"Almost fifteen," he said with a shrug.

"You…have not changed a bit. I swear you're my best friend still. Our immaturity levels…hee hee…" he laughed.

"Aren't I?"

"Aren't you what?"

"Your best friend."

"Well, duh…"

"People still say duh, really?" he teased.

"Man, shut up, no one asked you. Things have been majorly changed here. Speaking of…back on track."

"Right," Danny agreed. He stood in front of him again. "Tucker, come on, tell me what's going on."

"No. Your wife will bury me," he said, scooting him over and walking past.

"That is so…weird to hear," Danny told him, blinking several times at the statement.

"I think this is so funny honestly. You have…no idea how funny this really is," Tucker said, laughing.

"How is this funny? You won't tell me anything about what is happening in this time, I am…confused beyond help, I'm pretty sure--"

"It doesn't take much…"

"And…you are so taking my lack of knowledge for advantage, aren't you?"

"Of course I am," he answered, walking into another room.

Danny nearly jumped out of his skin when his pocket suddenly vibrated and gave a small shout of surprise.

"What?" Tucker asked.

"What is that?"

"What is what?"

He pointed to his pocket. "That."

"Uh…not quite sure…what exactly you're meaning…And if you don't get a bit more specific, I'm going to assume you haven't been to Health class lately."

"No," he said, glaring. He slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out a small, miniature—

"You've got to be kidding me," Tucker said, taking it from him. "You don't know what a cell phone is?" He thought back. "That's impossible. Cell phones were made in like the 1990s."

"I know what cell phones are," he said, reaching for it.

He read the id. "It's Sam." Pulling away from Danny again, he answered it. "Yes 'um?"

"We've got big trouble."

Despite the quiet volume, Danny suddenly found it growing louder and louder in his ears and he grinned crookedly, listening as Tucker walked a bit away from him, clearly trying to hide whatever conversation him and Sam were hiding.

"Where's Danny?"

"He's still here. We've got another problem."

"I highly doubt that. They're…They found out."

"Who?"

Danny's eyes widened at her reply.

"Danny and Valerie."

"What?" he said aloud.

"Hey!" Tucker shouted.

"What?" Sam asked.

"Someone's figuring out how to use a few of his powers," he grumbled, giving Danny a glare as he stared.

"What are you two talking about?" he demanded, starting to get frustrated. "Why won't you tell me?"

"Sam, I gotta call you back," Tucker told her, hanging up before her reply.

"Tucker, come on," he insisted, his eyes burning. "I have to know something."

"Okay, okay," he said after a minute. "I'll tell you…a few things…What do you want to know?"

"Valerie. And don't give me an excuse, because you know I won't buy it. Something is going on with her, and whatever it is, it's big."

Tucker groaned, really wishing he hadn't agreed on spilling and did a small, nervous dance. "She…is under this…Mind control spell."

Danny stared. "What?"

"Yeah…"

"Remember…Ember?"

It only took a few seconds for him to figure it out. "Oh…my gosh. You mean…"

"Yep."

His cell phone rang again and he nearly dropped it in surprise. "Hello?" Pause. "Sam, what? What do you mean? Sam, slow down." He pulled it away from his ear and looked over at Danny, who was raising an eyebrow. "She's babbling about something. See if you can talk to her."

Danny took the phone hesitantly and then pressed it to his ear. "Sam?"

"Danny? Is this Danny?"

"Yes…" he replied. "What's wrong?"

"I think something went wrong with the portal…"

At first, he had no clue what she was talking about. And then it hit him and he gasped loudly.

"What?" Tucker asked. "What's wrong with her?"

He didn't answer, his blue eyes wide. "Sam, where are you?"

* * *

"_Danny, _Danny, wake up…"

Sam and Tucker hovered over Danny's still frame, both exchanging nervous glances. "Danny, are you okay?"

He groaned, his eyes fluttering open and then blinked several times, his blue eyes growing wide. "Oh….my gosh."

"What's wrong? Are you okay?" Sam asked, panicking.

"Where am I?"

"Oh, great. See, that's what happens when we convince him to go into portals. Strange things always happen and now he has memory--" Tucker began.

"Portal?" Danny interrupted. "What portal?" He stared around, looking around the room. "This is my parents' lab."

"Yeah…you must have hit your head really hard to not be able to remember anything," Tucker offered. "Do you even know us?"

"Well, yeah. It's just…You are really different and younger--" He stopped. "Wait a second, what year is it?"

"2006, why?" she asked.

He jumped to his feet without using his hands, making both of his best friends gasp in unison. He stared at his hands and then whipped around, facing them both. Sam and Tucker stared, exchanging looks again.

"Don't you know what this means? The portal worked!" he exclaimed excitedly.

"Who are you?" Sam asked.

"Someone you know very well," he replied, smiling at her. She felt a very strange sensation go through her, not for the first time, and blushed furiously, turning away. "Someone you will know…ten years from now even."

"Wait…what?" he asked. "Ten years from now? So, what are you, from the future or something?"

"Well, not all of me obviously," he replied. "But yeah, pretty much."

"Hold on…" Sam intervened. "You're Danny Fenton, from the future?"

"Yep," he said, nodding. "What's the matter Sam, don't trust me?"

"Maybe…" she told him honestly.

"Don't worry. This will all come out fine," he said. "I know exactly what to do and you guys can help me."

"What are we doing?" Tucker wondered.

"You'll see," he said cryptically. "We've got a lot to fix."

He stepped forwards, raising his eyebrows up and down. "Wait, what's my future like? Am I married, am I rich, am I famous?"

"Only one out of three, sorry Tuck," Danny replied, looking around for something. He walked over towards the portal, staring into the luminescent void.

"Which one?"

"That is so not the point right now," Sam said, walking over to stand next to him.

"Why not? Don't you want to know the best part about our future is, Sam?" Danny suddenly asked.

The way he'd said _our _suddenly gave Sam a very odd feeling and a new excitement began to grow within her. Using all her might, she suppressed it. "Well, we…This…" For some odd reason, she couldn't find the right words to say.

"So, how are we supposed to help?" Tucker said eagerly.

"Hmm…well, for starters," Danny said, grabbing Sam's arm and rapidly shoving her into the portal unexpectedly.

"Hey!" Tucker shouted, gasping.

But a few seconds later, Sam reappeared, collapsing in his arms as he caught her. "We can bring the Sam that I know here to make things…a lot easier."

* * *

Hee hee. So, guess who's in the future now….Ha ha ha ha ha! Please R&R! Here's your sneak peek!

_Chapter Five: Keeping Up (Future scene)_

"_No, no, wait," Tucker insisted. "That's not it at all."_

"_You are only confusing me more," Danny grumbled, running a hand through his hair and sighing heavily. "This…doesn't make any sense."_

"_Nothing about your life makes sense."_

"_I've noticed."_

Lateraina Wolf


End file.
